Homework in the Laundry Basket

We're moving and we're thrilled about it, apprehensive, a little scared, overwhelmed at times, but all in all this is a dream come true for us. Having been born and raised in a little seaside town in Ireland, lately the mountains of Arizona have been feeling like they are a long way from home. Living life on the east coast of the United States seems a much more practical idea and frankly, while my hubby and I have enjoyed our 10 year southwest adventure, we feel more at home in the northeast.

One of the big tasks before us is of course to sell our home, no easy feat in this housing market and particularly not in Arizona, one of the states hit hardest by the housing bubble. Our cozy home on the edge of the forest has been on the market now for about three weeks. The week before listing it I scrubbed and cleaned and dusted and mopped until it was shining like a new pin, all in great anticipation of the hordes of people that would be lining up to come and see, waving big fat checks in their hands of course, falling over each other to be the first to lay claim to this amazing piece of property! There was all of one showing that first week and none the next, and none the next and so on... In my usual way of playing games with myself to keep my spirits up I reasoned that the lack of activity on the house was really a blessing in disguise because I didn't have to go through all that stress of keeping a house with three kids and one very large dog looking like the cover of a magazine. After all we had our hands full; negotiating a price on a new home back east, registering the kiddos at a new school, measuring for and ordering school uniforms, researching new doctors, clearing out closets...the list is endless.

Monday morning I dropped my little guy to school, checked in with his teachers and took my usual Monday morning walk though the meadow with my friend and our two dogs. It was a wonderful walk, we talked about spirituality and the state of the church and education and technology's impact on our kids and what it's like to live in Arizona these days, a lot of our favourite topics actually! The conversation was so engaging that we mutually decided to do another round on the trail. Then I took myself and my very wet and tired out, oversized dog back home. At home I was faced with the usual, breakfast dishes still on the table, dishes needing to be unloaded from the dishwasher, a various assortment of clothing items scattered nonchalantly across the living room floor, a laundry basket groaning to be unburdened, dog hair everywhere. But I was on fire from my stimulating conversation and decided to jump right in to planning my lessons for the next day's classes. On Tuesdays I teach music to prescholers and elementary school students. The elementary students are starting a study on South America soon and I have been teaching them songs relevant to that continent. I wanted to continue to flesh out my lesson plan and find some south American folk music for them to listen to, I even had plans to teach them a circle dance to a Peruvian tune. All of this required planning, creativity and time and I set to it.

Several hours later the phone rang. It was the realtor, "I have a couple that want to see your house within the hour. Can you do this?" Not wanting to pass up what could be a great opportunity I hastily mumbled "Um, I'll do my best" "Great, I'll tell them no earlier than 2pm" "Okay" I said not realizing that it was 1:25pm. Oh dear! The dishes, the beds, the clothes, the toys, the laundry, the dog, the dog hair, the dog slobber on the windows.... There were several moments of sheer panic. What to do???? Then I went in to wonder-woman mode. I grabbed my biggest laundry basket, full of course of dirty clothes and shoved the offending clothes in the dryer, who cares if they were dirty. I then swept through the house with the laundry basket scooping up everything that didn't have a home into it. Yesterdays mail, kiddies homework, bills waiting to be paid, a thermometer, bottles of medicine, a phone charger, a math game, a hot water bottle cap, notes from school, the little guy's latest colouring endeavours and crayons, toys, clothes, shoes, gloves, everything rudely hanging out on the floor that didn't belong there. Then there were the dirty dishes...the dishwasher was full of clean ones so what to do? I shoved them in the fridge hoping nobody would be inspired to take a peek at its contents. Wiping down countertops I planned my next move, the vacuum cleaner. Grabbing it I said a quick prayer that the bag wouldn't need emptying. The phone rang, it was hubby, "I just heard you have people coming over, are you okay?" "Yeah" I said breathlessly, ('cause vacuuming always seems to turn in to an aerobic activity for me), the vacuum still roaring in one hand, phone in the other, "Gotta go!". It was 2pm, time to vacate the house. I closed the door behind me, said another silent prayer, hoisted the burgeoning laundry basket in the back of the car along with the oversized dog and went off to do my usual Monday afternoon shuttling of kiddos between school and piano lessons.

I returned home in eager anticipation at 3:45, but there were no fresh footprints in the snow, no new tire tracks to tell me if there had been two vehicles or one. Confused I unlocked the door, no calling card from the realtor to say they had been here. As I looked around surveying my beautiful home aware of the dirty secrets it held behind closed doors, the phone rang again, it was the realtor. "I'm so sorry, they just told me they have been delayed until 4:15. Is this okay?" "Of course" I said, for what else could one say?

For another 30 minutes I fussed and prepped and mopped and remembered to clean the dog slobber off the windows that I never got to earlier and left again, this time, to hide surreptiously down the adjoining cul de sac in perfect line of vision of any potential visitors. I saw them. I timed them. Eight minutes it took.... The realtor called again "They're out now" (I already knew that of course)."It was so quick" I said. "Well, they said they liked it. I'll keep you posted". I returned home again, hubby came in right behind me with the kiddos. I didn't feel good, my body was hurting, the first place that starts to hurt is usually the cavity area on the upper left side of my back and then my legs. The thermometer that I dug back out of the laundry basket that was in the back of the car read 100.7, not an official fever, but enough to make you feel blah. "Just climb in to bed my love. I can take it from here" he said. He knows!